Old photos · Georgia

Old photos of Tbilisi

Tiflis before it was Tbilisi: from the first views of the old town in the 1850s to the Soviet city of the 1970s and 1980s, the archive's two busiest Tbilisi decades.

9,433 photographs within 8 km of the centre · counted 25 September 2026

Time Portal's archive holds about 9,400 photographs of Tbilisi (Tiflis), taken between 1858 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 69% of them date from 1955 or later and are free to browse at map.timeportal.app with no account; the older ones open with Pro. The oldest, dated 1858 in the archive, shows the Sololaki district, seen from the old astronomical observatory.

Photographs: 9,400
Oldest: 1858
Busiest decade: 1970s
Free, 1955 on: 69%

Wooden balconied houses on the edge of the ravine at Abanotubani, Tiflis, in the 1880s — Houses over the ravine at Abanotubani, 1880–1885

How many photographs, decade by decade

The busiest decades for Tbilisi are the 1970s and the 1980s — 2,268 and 1,874 photographs. 949 were taken before 1900. Everything from 1955 onward is free to open on the map; the older photographs are part of Pro.

Photographs of Tbilisi in the Time Portal archive, within 8 km of the centre, by the year each was taken. Counted 25 September 2026.
Decade	Relative size	Photographs
before 1860		10
1860s		38
1870s		105
1880s		306
1890s		490
1900s		589
1910s		192
1920s		206
1930s		452
1940s		188
1950s		792
1960s		1,257
1970s		2,268
1980s		1,874
1990s		666

Where the photographs were taken

Counted in a small square around each place — about 250 metres each way — so a number is every photograph taken there, of the place itself or of the street beside it. Each place opens the map on that spot.

Place	Photos	Oldest
Rustaveli Avenue	1,099	1868
Freedom Square	391	1890
The sulphur baths of Abanotubani	496	1880–1885
Narikala Fortress	521	1885–1890
Metekhi	940	1885–1890
Mtatsminda and the funicular	411	1900–1905

What changed

The archive's Tbilisi starts as Tiflis, the name it kept until 1936: the old town of flat roofs and carved wooden balconies packed under the Narikala fortress, and beside it the new European avenue — Golovin Avenue, renamed after the poet Shota Rustaveli in 1918.

Much of the old town survived the Soviet century. The riverside changed most, as embankments replaced the houses that hung over the Mtkvari.

A fire brigade crossing Erivan Square in Tiflis in 1890, the city hall on the left — Erivan Square — today Freedom Square — 1890

Metekhi church on its cliff above the Mtkvari river in Tbilisi in 1950 — Metekhi above the Mtkvari, 1950

Questions about old photos of Tbilisi

Where can I see old photos of Tbilisi on a map?

On Time Portal: about 9,400 photographs of Tbilisi, each pinned where it was taken, most with the direction the camera faced. The map is free in any browser at map.timeportal.app — photographs from 1955 on need no account — and there is an app for iPhone and iPad.

What is the oldest photograph of Tbilisi in the archive?

The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1858, shows the Sololaki district, seen from the old astronomical observatory. 949 of the Tbilisi photographs were taken before 1900.

Which years of Tbilisi are best covered?

The 1970s, with 2,268 photographs, and the 1980s, with 1,874. 69% of the Tbilisi photographs date from 1955 or later.

Open Tbilisi on the map

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One place in Tbilisi, across a century: Rustaveli Avenue: Tbilisi Then & Now. Other cities: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, New York, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Odesa, Riga, Rome, London. Or search any address on the map, or in the app.

The counts on this page are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — credit Time Portal and link here. The photographs are not ours to license: they belong to their photographers and the archives that keep them.